Beautiful

We have officially been at it for 1 week now. Tonight I sat down with my dinner, alone and quite for the first time all day. The day had flown by, in fact this past week has flown by.

We started with a bang last Monday, we screened 66 patients and scheduled 50 of them for surgery. Since then we have had 5 days of surgery and done 15 surgeries!  The week has gone well and I am so grateful. Today the first 5 ladies danced. I have a love/hate relationship with dress ceremony day. Having a celebration party at 1030 in the morning basically disrupts the whole day and everything around it is chaotic but I wouldn't change it for the world, because for that hour we pause, we praise, and we dance!

Part of the VVF program here on the ship includes this dress ceremony. It is a celebration of healing. The women comes to us leaking urine constantly, she feels ashamed and outcast, she feels alone and hopeless. We do surgery and Lord willing when it is successful and she is dry we have this ceremony. The women gets a new dress and head-wrap, she wears a necklace she has made herself, she gets pampered and doted on, her make-up done and then she walks down to hall to the beat of the drums and makes her grand entrance into the dress ceremony. The room is filled with surgeons, the nurses who have cared for her, the crew who has been praying, and other patients. The ladies have an opportunity to tell their stories and to celebrate their new lives. Their new dresses are a symbol of that new life, a new start.

The ceremony starts at 1030 but all the prep work starts around 9. The ladies are taken off to another room where they get dressed and their make-up done. I wanted to sneak in for a quick peak. The door was locked but I smiled in the window and they let me in. I watched as Rikiata's head-wrap got the final fluffs, then a full length mirror was help up for her to see herself. A huge smile broke across her face, she almost couldn't look. A week ago today she arrived on this ship praying that here she would find healing and today she looks in the mirror at a brand new women, one filled with joy and beauty from the inside out.

So at 1030 we started, they danced down the hall like the owned the place and took their places in the five chairs set specially for them. At this same time I get a note slipped to me their is a patient on the dock, she missed screening because her mother had been ill and is it possible I see her now. I snuck out and spoke with her quickly and was back just in time to hear the ladies share their testimonies. This is always quite the process because it takes two translators to get what they are saying into English.

Adjatou speaks in Tchkossi, her native dialect, then it is translated into French, and from French to English. Ramatou stood behind Adjatou translating into French. As I sat there looking at Ramatou in her Mercy Ships scrubs tears welled up in my eyes.  Ramatou was a VVF patient last year. She needed 2 separate operations throughout the year but now is dry and healed. She is Togolese and speaks most of the northern languages along with French so this year we have hired her to work as a day volunteer with us translating for the patients from the north. As Ramatou stood their with her fancy new hair do looking all confident and in her element, I was again reminded so vividly that we are not just providing healing for their bodies, we are giving them a second chance at life.

Today these 5 women stood tall and proud they looked around the room without shame, they wore their new outfits  and they were beautiful!